


never ever satisfied (i won't be denied)

by astralscrivener



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Astera Has The Team Brain Cell And Isn't Happy, Dungeons & Dumnbasses: Tipsy Rogues, Gen, Past Character Death, Post-Season/Series 01, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 02:57:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: One fight against a maybe-god in a lake and death of a party member later, and the gang wants nothing more than to get back to their mansion, rest, and figure out where to go from here.Fate may or may not have other plans.





	never ever satisfied (i won't be denied)

**Author's Note:**

> _title from "hunger" by the score, yes i'm already stealing lyrics from their new ep for titling purposes and u can't stop me_
> 
> HEYO
> 
> second d&d fic, still don't know how to tag, what am i doing here this isn't my domain
> 
> anygay
> 
> context for my group's season 1 finale:  
-we went to an underground lake and fought the being known as "the dark shape in the water," who may or may not have been a god,  
-he stole gemstones with powers that came from other gods, and upon shattering, one vaporized our drow ranger, spike, into a pile of ash.  
-we're currently heading back to the mansion where gorkks the goblin, the npc who brought the team together, is waiting for us.  
-darynar fanggor was mentioned SESSIONS back by an oracle, and has one of these powerful gems in his sword. 
> 
> the remaining crew:  
-eveldra oce, a tiefling bard currently wearing glasses she can't take off, which allow her to talk to razumyr, the god of insanity  
-drelllamir, a high elf baker/rogue who got kidnapped earlier in the campaign and still won't tell us what happened  
-szarin, a fish man npc who seems to have had his mind wiped, with only a glint of recognition and an inability/unwillingness to speak left behind  
-astera eilwyn, a half-elf rogue with a short temper and a dead ex-girlfriend
> 
> alright here we go too much context for a 1k oneshot but anygay
> 
> **trigger warnings for threats of violence, past character death, y'know, normal dnd things**

Astera has seen and dealt with more bullshit today than she’s ever dealt with in that infuriatingly suffocating life under the High Elves, and she’s had it up to fucking here.

It’s probably why she palms two daggers in plain view of the countless soldiers surrounding their exhausted, rag-tag little group, the same group for which Astera has somehow been granted possession of the lone brain cell they share and wishes more than ever that she hasn’t. But someone’s gotta hold it, and Eveldra’s too busy talking to the God of Insanity, Szarin’s a walking vegetable, Drelllamir’s…well, he’s Drelllamir. And Spike…

“_What_ do you want from us?”

She growls it.

She fucking growls it and surprises herself with how vicious it sounds, the way it tears out of her throat, and the man at the front of the group of soldiers looks at her and _smiles_, nervous, and there’s a surge of adrenaline and animalistic energy and _anger_ and Astera thinks about how satisfying it would be to slit his throat, or maybe shoot him with some magical laser and watch him become a pile of ash at their feet. Who gives a shit if he’s got a blade, crackling with electricity? Who cares if he’s got soldiers and the air of someone important?

The man raises his hands to either side of his head, sword high in the air.

One wrong move—or maybe one deliberate move—could kill Astera.

_Try me,_ she thinks, fingers twitching.

“Hello,” the man says with another nervous chuckle. “Um, I’m Darynar Fanggor. How about we put our weapons down and have a nice chat?”

_Fanggoria. _

_ Darynar Fanggor_ _…_

The name is familiar enough to frighten Astera, somewhere inside of her. Her stomach churns because she knows that name is more important than she wants it to be, the name of the _whole fucking country_, but there are other reasons he’s important, too, but she can’t remember those. But Eveldra must, because she gasps sharply albeit quietly, and even Drelllamir blinks in surprise, a spark of recognition crossing his features.

“Is that a proposal or an order?” Astera asks, even though the soldiers should make the answer rather obvious.

The response comes not from Darynar but from Eveldra, who, even with Raspberry/Razzle-Dazzle/Razzy-Boy/Astera-Doesn’t-Quite-Remember-His-Name speaking to her through the glasses she can’t take off, knows not to be short with this guy; she elbows Astera in the side sharply enough for Astera to yelp and glare, while Eveldra looks—or Astera thinks she’s probably looking—at Darynar.

“Well,” Darynar says, “I’d like to think I made it sound like a proposal, but you really don’t have a choice, as several of my soldiers are surrounding you.”

“Several,” Drelllamir repeats, utterly deadpan.

Darynar shrugs sheepishly. “Math hasn’t exactly been my forte.”

His voice is quieter than Astera expected for someone with a legendary name and probably a legendary history to back it up, and she hates it. She hates that he’s cracking jokes, hates that he’s holding them up when they’ve got other places to be, _hates_ in general—

“Well then,” Eveldra says, and takes a step in front of Astera, before Astera can do something ridiculous like lash out, “call off your soldiers, and we’ll talk to you.”

“They’re a little much,” Drelllamir agrees with one arched eyebrow and crossed arms. “We’ve been through it. We’d appreciate not to be through something else.”

“…_Been through it?_” Darynar repeats slowly.

Eveldra waves him off. “Turn of phrase meaning we fought a dark shape in the water, possibly a god but we can’t be certain, and may have…lost a few friends along the way.”

Darynar’s face slackens.

“Oh, gods,” Drelllamir mutters. “He knows what the dark shape is.”

“My condol—”

“Save it,” Astera cuts him off. “Call off the soldiers. We’re not fucking around.”

“Astera!”

Evelra sounds like a scolding mother, and Astera’s blood boils almost instantly, some thread inside of her fraying dangerously, too close to snapping for comfort. Her fingers tighten again around the handles of her daggers, the same daggers she still itches to embed _somewhere,_ possibly in _someone_ if things don’t get moving along in the next minute or two.

Darynar watches the two of them, eyebrows drawn up.

Finally, he looks away, sweeps eyes out at his men.

“At ease,” he calls, and hesitation and murmuring ripples through the group of them, before one finally lowers their weapon, and then another, and then all of them—arms falling down to sides, feet shuffling as they step back and give the gang more breathing room.

Drelllamir lets himself relax, visibly, melodramatically.

Eveldra carefully eases the tension out of her shoulders.

Szarin is motionless, still staring blankly ahead.

Astera’s muscles only tense further.

“Please,” Darynar says, “my camp is a short distance from here. We’ll talk, I can get you all something to eat and drink…”

“That would be nice,” Eveldra responds. “Thank you.”

So Darynar starts down the path, and the group follows suit—Eveldra first, with Szarin trailing like a lost duckling behind its newfound mother; Drelllamir and Astera following behind them, side-by-side in silence, tense from Astera’s end and awkward from Drelllamir’s.

“So, you know,” Drelllamir says quietly, and pretends not to notice Astera’s a piece of glass one poke away from shattering, “I wasn’t totally on board with this whole thing, anyway. My bakery business? _Booming_. And I know you weren’t on board either. We could probably get away with ditching these guys if we run fast enough. I take the Bag of Holding from Eveldra, we go track down that necromancer of yours, and we forget this guy.”

_We can__’t._

It sounds nice—another road trip with a bounty on their heads, another ghost from Astera’s past. But the whole _saving the world_ thing—they’d done that. They’d defeated the dark shape, and word will spread. Soon people will know Astera’s face, somehow her name. They’ll ask questions when they see herself and Drelllamir separated from the others, and Astera…she can’t leave them behind now, either.

Maybe a month ago, she could’ve.

Could’ve run, could’ve not looked back, could’ve vanished until people forgot she ever existed, until people were caught between wondering if she’d ever been there at all or if she’d been a figment of their imaginations.

But being a fugitive with this group of people, saving the world with them…

Those are tethers. One way or another, Astera is bound to this little group. One way or another, she has to defend them—protect them with everything she has, because she’s already failed several times in that department, and she is _sick and tired of fucking failing, like always._

Unlike other failures except one, this one has had consequences.

“No,” she finally says, shaking her head. “We’ll see what Daryl or whoever has to say to us. He’s important, he knows things we need.”

“Really?” Drelllamir looks at her sidelong, genuine surprise pitching his voice up. “You’re serious?”

_You__’re never serious about things like this,_ he doesn’t say.

“Really,” Astera answers, and then her eyes narrow and mouth quirks up as she sets her eyes on the back of Darynar’s fluttering green cloak. “We’ll talk to him, we’ll get what we need, _then_ we’ll rob him blind and ditch his ass.”

**Author's Note:**

> nicole and clare if you're reading this stop me before i write an entire spinoff that noah will inevitably prove wrong when we get to season 2
> 
> anygay
> 
> [read my other fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/works) | [follow me on twitter](https://twitter.com/astralscrivener) | [follow dungeons & dumbasses on twitter](https://twitter.com/dungeonsdumbass)


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